


Cambionverse Oneshots

by callowyn, thegeminisage



Series: Cambionverse [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Current Events, Drabble, Episode: s05e04 The End, Episode: s05e06 I Believe The Children Are Our Future, Family Feels, Fanmix, Found Families, Gen, Inspired by Music, Next-Gen, Original Character(s), Prequel, Sam Winchester's Wall, Team Free Will 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2065113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callowyn/pseuds/callowyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage/pseuds/thegeminisage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. August 1st, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This might not be where they thought they’d end up, but there are worse places to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Happy Apocalypse Day!](http://thegeminisage.tumblr.com/post/93486839558) Here is a fic about what was happening in [Cambionverse](cambionverse.tumblr.com) on August 1st, 2014.

"Whatever you do," Lucifer says, stepping closer to Dean, "you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter... _we_ will always end up—"

* * *

"Here." Dean hands Sam a beer, and for a second Sam flinches from the cold of it.

"B-Ben get home okay?" he asks to cover it up, fumbling with the bottle cap. Dean takes it back and pops it open with one smooth motion, just like the first beer Sam ever drank. He's had good days and bad days, since the wall in his head came tumbling down. Today has not been a good day.

"Yeah, safe and sound. He wanted to say goodbye before he left, but." Dean shrugs.

But Sam hadn't been in any shape to see him off. He's been feeling the fire licking at his skin since he woke up, and anyone not Dean has a tendency to blur at the edges, their faces distorting. "He's a g-good kid," Sam says. He takes a tentative swallow, thankful that for now the beer doesn't taste like anything else.

"I let him drive," Dean adds, because he knows Sam likes these stories, snapshots of a life he can't always live. "He rides the left side of the lane just like you did. White-knuckled it for most of the way, specially changing lanes, but he kept talking almost the whole ride. Even had a girl waitin' for him on the front porch."

"Sounds like someone I know," Sam says. His shaking has ebbed, and it's not because of the booze. Dean scoots over closer so their knees are touching, and Sam lets himself slump heavy into his brother's side, trying not to think _soulmates_. He bets Dean tries not to, either.

"Yeah, you keep talkin' trash, little brother," Dean murmurs. "You're just—"

* * *

"Jealous?" calls the girl on the surfboard, grin a mile wide as she paddles back out to where Jesse's floating.

"Damn right I am," Jesse laughs. "D'you see my last go? I went down like a lead balloon." He loves the water more now than ever, though; the older he gets, the more he appreciates these rare moments where he can struggle with something besides the hellfire lurking under his skin. But today he’s mostly been content to watch this girl whose name he still doesn't know as she slices through the waves like she was born to it. Maybe she was. He clutches his borrowed surfboard a little tighter as another swell rolls past, pushing them closer together.

"It's only fair you're shit at _something_ ," the girl says, twisting her dark hair to squeeze the saltwater out of it. "Mister I-do-backflips-off-the-pier-when-no-one's-watching." She kicks some water in his direction.

"Parkour’s not that hard really," Jesse says. "I learnt it when I was a kid." At sixteen, he technically still is a kid, but he thinks it's fair to say he's already endured more loneliness and danger than most adults have in a lifetime. He pushes himself back up on the board, shaking himself like a wet dog. She shrieks with laughter, splashing back, and he grins at her. "I could teach you a trick or two—if you can get me over one of these waves without drowning." Not that he _can_ drown, but she doesn't need to know that.

She considers him a moment. It’s only been three days since she first caught him out here, splashing around the rocky cove a little separate from the hustle and bustle of the main beach, but she keeps coming back and so does he, so Jesse supposes that makes them friends. Soon enough, Jesse will have to move on—it's not safe to stay in a place where he's been picking pockets to survive , and getting run out of town will sour any good memories he makes here. But he is making them, that's the important thing. This day, unlike so many others, won't be spent alone.

"I'll show you again first," the girl decides, and though Jesse privately thinks she just wants to show off again, he doesn't mind a bit. "Watch—"

* * *

"This," Ben says, "is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me."

"I don't get it," Katie says. "This truck's been sitting here for years."

"The key here is that it’s not _my_ car," Marie says. "I was going to wait until you were sixteen, but given that Dean will keep being a bad influence no matter what..." She raises the keys when Ben tries to make a grab for them. "Only to and from school, you understand? Otherwise you need someone over twenty-one, which you—" She throws a pointed look at Katie. "—are not."

"Yes," Ben says, eyes wide. "I promise. Double promise. Double triple promise, forever and ever, amen."

Marie eyes him for a moment, then hands him the keys. "Seriously," she adds to Katie, who already has her license. "Don't let him drive it anywhere else when I'm not looking, please. You two need to go somewhere, _you_ drive."

Katie gives her a salute. "Yes ma'am."

Later, watching Ben try to install an iPod jack in the ancient cassette player, Katie says, "I can't believe she gave you a _car_. It's not even your birthday."

"No kidding," Ben agrees. It is, however, Katie's birthday next week. "I should show up driving the Impala more often if it gets me shit like this. This truck used to be _Dean's_."

Katie rolls her eyes. "I guess that's why it smells like booze in here."

"Don't tell me you're jealous," Ben says. "It's from, like, the eighties. It'd be a piece of shit to anybody else."

Katie makes a face. "Except people with no car at all." She catches herself and adds, "Not that I’m expecting—"

"You're an idiot." Marie's going to kill him for this, but he can't just leave that look on Katie's face. "The one she's getting _you_ comes with the iPod jack pre-installed."

Katie's jaw drops, incredulous grin spreading over her face. "No way. No way! You're—"

* * *

"Lying," Claire confirms, for the seventh time in a row. "Do you believe me yet? Because this is starting to hurt." It's an intentional jab to make her mother feel guilty—but then, she ought to feel guilty, nosing around Claire's room when she wasn't home.

Her mother stands, running her hand through her hair. "But he’s been gone for _years_ ,” she says. “Why are you still..." She seems to reconsider her choice of words several times. "Affected?"

Claire gives that question exactly as much reaction as it deserves. "Can I have my pills back now?"

Amelia glances towards the kitchen counter, and the grocery bag full of over-the-counter painkillers she found under Claire’s bed. After the fiasco with the scarring of her legs, even Claire can't blame her for being a little alarmed.

"I'm not overdosing," Claire says. "It just hurts. Those help."

"I just don’t think you need so _many_ ," says Amelia. “Can’t you, I don’t know, try to avoid hearing lies in the first place?”

”Sure thing, Mom,” Claire shoots back. “You’ll be home for dinner, right?”

Amelia winces, and rubs at the dark circles under her eyes. She looks tired all the time these days, and old in a way Claire never could have imagined as a child. But then, Amelia too knows what it’s like to see your body move without you.

Claire takes a breath, relenting a little. "I start junior year in two weeks. Every time someone says they did their homework I'm going to get a migraine. Why do you think I got these in the first place?"

Amelia lowers herself into the chair across from her again. "I just don't want you getting hurt.”

Claire turns to stare out the window. Her eyes have the infuriating tendency to start watering any time her mother speaks to her at all these days, and she refuses to let Amelia see it. “They’re called painkillers for a reason, Mom.”

Amelia reaches across the table to touch Claire’s wrist. Claire jumps, but doesn’t immediately shake her off. “Let’s compromise, okay?” her mom says. “I’ll let you have the pills, but only one bottle at a time. When you run out, you can have another. I just want to be sure you’re not going through them too quickly.”

So that’s it—she wants to be the gatekeeper, in this as in all other aspects of Claire’s life. Sure, for right now she’ll let Claire take the pills, but what about the next time she decides that Claire is asking for _too many_?

Claire pulls her hand back. "Keep them," she says stiffly. She didn’t need any meds while she was carving Enochian into her own skin, did she? She won't ask for anything, won't rely on her mother _or_ the pills. Her hands brush over her thighs. The only person who’s going to decide what goes in Claire’s body is Claire, and if that means enduring a little pain now and then, so be it. She's hurt worse.

She gets up, chair scraping across the floor, and heads for the stairs. Her mother stops her.

"Claire?" she says. "He is...he is gone, right?”

Claire freezes. “What makes you think I still have any connection to—"

* * *

"Castiel." Balthazar saunters toward him across Bobby Singer's junkyard. "I thought I might find you here again."

Castiel lets out a long-suffering sigh, pushing out with his grace to mute the immediate area from human perception. "What do you want?" he asks Balthazar, hoping irritation will mask his embarrassment. He’s being _creepy_ , as Dean would put it, but watching over the Winchesters is one of the few things that can soothe his loneliness these days.

"No time for an old friend?" Balthazar says, mock-offended. "These new ones don't seem too keen on you anymore." Castiel graces that statement with ringing silence, and Balthazar sighs. "Seriously, Cas, this is bordering on pathetic. Either knock on the door or come on home."

There's a crash from inside, and Castiel tenses, but a moment later a light goes on in one of the uppermost rooms. He imagines he can hear Dean's voice from here, murmuring nonsense reassurances when Sam cries out, bringing his brother back from his memories of the Pit into the here and now. Just like he does every night. Like Castiel couldn't.

"Knock on their door," Castiel scoffs, his vessel's throat tightening. He hates physiological reactions to emotion, but hates even more that he's getting used to them. "They wouldn't listen to anything I had to say. Not after I did this."

"And what would you tell them, if you could?" Balthazar asks, a trace of genuine sympathy in his voice now. That's almost worse.

"What do you think?" Castiel throws one last mournful look at the house and turns away. "I'd tell them I'm—"

* * *

"Sorry," Sam says through his teeth. He's crouched on the floor beside the bed, all six feet of him curled into the smallest possible space. "Sorry, Dean. I didn't mean to wake you."

"No sweat," Dean says, breath still coming a little too fast. Ever since his own tour down under, he wakes up shaky when it’s too sudden, even though it’s only ever Sam that does it anymore. Sam knows it, too, and it doesn't help his guilt complex one bit.

"God, I’m such a mess," Sam says. "You shouldn’t have to do this, Dean, not after everything else, you should get a chance to live your own life—go be with Ben, or something, you’ve earned the apple pie life a million times over—"

"Hey, no." Dean reaches out to touch Sam’s shoulder, slowly uncurling him until they both can stand. "Don't you think it for a second, Sam. There's nowhere I'd rather be than—"

* * *

"—here," Lucifer finishes. He pretends to look apologetic, but Dean sees the smirk hiding in his brother's features. "I win." He shrugs Sam's broad shoulders. "So I win."

And though he doesn't know the truth of it just yet, Dean tells the devil, "You're wrong."


	2. Antichrist Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the antichrist's human experiences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, awhile back, [Caiternate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Caiternate/profile) made a [super-cool fanmix for Jesse Turner](http://gaykatara.tumblr.com/post/113044967679/antichrist-blues). We liked it so much we wrote out a tiny drabble for each song (focused more on the feel of the music than the words), and then we put them all together with fic names next to the titles just to give you a general idea of what era we're in. We hope you enjoy it!

_**i. jesus christ** (antichrist problems)_

"I hope the other cambions weren't this pathetic," Meg sneers.

Jesse's breath catches. "Other cambions? There are people like me?"

Meg waves a hand. " _Were._ Only one can exist at a time. Last one I know of had Noah building an ark." His expression at that makes her roll her eyes. "This is exactly what I mean. If there were other cambions you wouldn't think twice about competition. You'd try to make _friends_ with them."

Jesse laughs. "You have no idea what I'd give for the chance." Best to leave it there, though; he doesn't want to show her any more weak spots.

For a moment he almost imagines her expression softens. Then she throws up her hands. "You were _Lucifer's cambion_. You could've been another God." She makes a scornful sound. "But instead you go around feeling all that _loneliness_ and _love_ and goody-two-shoes _guilt_ when you kill people." A sigh, like he’s the most disappointing thing she’s ever seen. "All that work, and you came out no better than human."

 

_**ii. chasing twisters** (the australia years)_

Jesse's running again.

He's always running, of course—he's been running for a solid year now with no sign of another human face—but it's more literal this time. He's racing the sky, kicking up hot red dirt behind him, towards a high outcropping of rock in the distance. It can't be long now.

His sweater, shirt, and boots he stows safely below to keep them from getting too damaged. No one will see; there's nothing around but rocks and dry grass for miles. He climbs the cliff with his bare hands and feet that heal as soon as the skin begins to get raw, high as he can, as close to the sky as the earth will allow.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, he's struggling onto the flat surface of the cliff and rolling onto his back in the red dust, staring at the darkening sky above him. He catches his breath and then sits up, all of him coated with dirt; it clings to the sweat on his limbs, his eyelashes, his hair. He settles in to wait. This can't be his, the sky was like this when he woke, so surely, _surely_ —

The rumble of thunder is almost reassuring. Like a promise: _soon_. Jesse grins.

The storm breaks fast and hard. One second Jesse's covered in dust, then a deafening crack of thunder opens the sky and suddenly he's soaked. It turns the dust to mud and gets him filthy all over again, running warm down his face and back, so thick he can't even see down to the ground between lightning flashes. He flops back into the mud and laughs.

He's still alone. But there are worse ways to spend a birthday.

 

_**iii. satan's foot on my neck** (antichrist problems)_

"I'm not going to hold back," Claire warns him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," Jesse says—squeaks, really—eyes on the silver knife in her hand. His own blade is actually a dulled-down wooden stake. "I mean, I did all right with the hellhounds, didn't I?"

"I think you were tapping into demonic reflexes there," Claire says wryly. "Your adrenaline was high."

Jesse chooses not to mention that his adrenaline now isn't exactly nothing. What if he hurts her? What if she hurts _him_ , and the silver kicks him into demon mode and he hurts her anyway? What if—

" _Gentlemen_ ," Ben intones, " _start your engines!_ "

Claire swings wide and Jesse blocks with one arm, but she just opens her hand and drops the knife to catch it with the other. She slices fast across his middle—so much for that shirt—and when Jesse jerks back, she takes the opening. He lands hard on his front before he can register how he got there, Claire twisting his knife arm behind his back.

"Wow," Ben says. His voice sounds distant, like it's underwater. "That was brutal, Claire."

"I warned him." She lets Jesse up.

Jesse shakes his head. "Let me try again. I'm not used to actually _trying_ to hurt people."

The second time, he makes it an entire ten seconds before his face hits the dirt. The third through eighth tries don't go much better. Every time he thinks he's got her— _wham_ , down again.

"I think I must be stress-relieving," Jesse tells Ben, muffled by dirt. "Sure you don't want to try me?" He's trying to avoid getting up until his pulse slows. Claire's weight on his back has given his body the wrong idea, and with the sweatpants he’s wearing, there's no way either of them will fail to notice.

"I dunno, I think you're just about done," Ben chuckles, and yeah, Jesse can admit to that.

 

_**iv. arsonist's lullaby** (envesseled)_

They see no streetlights, no traffic, just two lanes with snow piled high on both sides and the stars burning cold above them. Jesse's last four attempts at conversation have failed miserably. He didn't mention Ben at all, even once, though his heart is crying out for someone to share the grief with.

"You don't want to talk to me, fine," Jesse says. "But you can't keep going on like—"

"I talk to you," Claire says. It's not technically a lie, she’s getting better at that, but it's flat, not defensive. Like she isn't even in there.

"You know what I mean," Jesse snaps. "Ben wouldn't want—"

"Shut up, Jesse." Claire pushes the gas a little. Her expression doesn't change.

Jesse settles on his side of their stolen car. "I miss him too, you know."

_I loved him too, you know._

There's some things he still can't say aloud.

 

_**v. bloodbuzz ohio** (cambion)_

Jesse Turner still knows where to find the best burgers in Nebraska. His parents used to take him to this same steakhouse for every birthday, even when he was too small to eat an entire burger all by himself. The corner store down the street is still here too, his old Saturday haunt when both his parents had to work. Further on, the old steep road where he'd tried to take on a makeshift bike ramp of rickety crates and broken plywood. He'd landed flat on his face in front of all his friends—but of course none of them remember that now.

His bloody nose was gone by the time he got home. At the time he was relieved; his mother certainly wouldn't have been pleased to find out he'd been pulling stunts like that, even if his father would probably have given him pointers. But he wonders now if his parents ever wondered about him, never getting sick, avoiding all those normal childhood injuries. He never had. Some kind of suspicion, some inkling that there was something off about him...well, that might've made things easier.

Jesse buys a paper and loiters in a barn while he waits for it to get dark. The kids at school used to say this place was haunted. It isn't, of course, but the barn's old and isolated, and that's scary to most people. For Jesse, it's a comfort.

He doesn't want to have do this. His parents should have grown old and died peacefully. Jesse should never have had any reason to come back here, should never have been slapped in the face like this with the life he had to give up. And the obituary—it's stupid, he’d have seen if the demon killed anyone else in that dream, but he's scared. If they adopted once, they might have again; it's not out of the question that they replaced him.

He reads it all, heart in his throat. Survived by, survived by—but it's not there.

When he finally goes home, he heads for the mailbox first. It says _Bill & Beth Turner_. There are no other names.

A childless couple.

He doesn't even know if he's glad.

 

_**vi. run boy run** (cambion)_

"All right, you bastards," he mutters. "Come and get me."

The problem isn't that Jesse hates killing.

 

_**vii. don't let me go** (i believe the children are our future)_

Jesse stood in the doorway of his parents' bedroom for so long. They were sleeping, just as the man in the trenchcoat said they would be. This time yesterday he would have said there was nothing, _nothing_ , his mom and dad couldn't fix. But now...

Sam said a demon had killed his and Dean's father, just because they stayed together.

They came looking for him. The demon came looking for him too, and more will come as long as he's here. Maybe as long as he lives. If he takes his parents with him...they could die, just like Sam and Dean's dad. And it would be all his fault. He can't stay here.

He can't go with Sam and Dean, either; their friend in the trenchcoat tried to _kill_ him. If he goes with them, they could get him to use this power for them just like the demons would. They might even try to hurt him again if he can't do what they want him to. Or worse—they could come back for his parents, use them as hostages. Anyone could. So many people could get hurt because of him.

What is he supposed to _do_? As long as people know about him, they'll—

But what if they don't?

The demon said he could do anything he wanted, and it told the truth at least some of the time. _You can wash it all clean_ , it said. He has to leave, but he go wherever he wants.

His eyes land on his _AUSTRALIA_ poster. His mom loves the ocean. It's too bad he can't take her.

Jesse closes his dad’s wallet and puts it in his pocket. He can't look at the picture anymore; it will make this too hard. He blinks fast, clenching his hands up so he won't cry. He's got to be like a real grown-up now, because if he gets upset he could start shaking the house again. He can feel that power, hot under his skin, screaming to be let out.

 _Make them forget_ , he tells it. _Wash it clean, start over, make it like I was never here, make them forget and then make me go away for real._

The cambion's power obeys him.

Jesse never says goodbye.

 

_**viii. antichrist** (only human)_

It's Ben who suggests pulling the truck over for awhile. These desert highways are long and the stops are sparse and anyway they're low on cash, and here's a fine enough place to sleep until the sun comes up.

Tonight is one of those pleasantly warm nights Jesse loves because it reminds him of the outback—only better, because he gets the sand and rock beneath him, the clear night sky and stars above, the safety of no one around for miles and miles, but Ben and Claire are right here with him. He's not alone anymore.

Claire takes the cab of the truck for herself, windows rolled down while Ben and Jesse share the back. They exchange a guilty look where she can't see; they haven't told her yet why they might appreciate the privacy. _I like the way things are now_ , she had said. _I want it to stay like this._ How could they?

"Doin' okay, Claire?" Ben asks once they’re all settled. He already sounds half-asleep; nothing puts him out like the back of this truck.

"I'm all right," she says, soft; she's not far from sleep, either, which must must be why she lets Ben get away with asking it a second time today. "You?"

"Great," Ben mumbles, and snuggles a little closer to Jesse. And then: "Jess? How 'bout you?"

Jesse blinks, surprised, and shifts so he can look over at Ben's face. Ben’s nearly all the way asleep, but he still thought to ask, even though Jesse's not sick like Claire is. Fondness blooms in Jesse's chest so sudden and strong it almost hurts.

"Never better," he says quietly, and that's the honest truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The problem with "Run Boy Run" was that it was _too_ accurate. We have pictured it with that particular scene in _Cambion_ for so long that it was impossible to write any other scene for it. So you get a small snippet of _Cambion_ instead!


	3. A Tent In The Outback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elias Simms, scourge of the outback, have picked up a stray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in August 2015 (right now!), shortly after Jesse teams up with the Simms brothers.

Oliver can't sleep. 

True, this tent has three people crammed in it where two was already a tight squeeze, but his more immediate problem is the painfully bright glow coming from Elias's cot. 

"Who're you texting?" Oliver asks, flopping an arm in his brother's direction. Jesse, already passed out between them, has no cot and thus remains blissfully unaware of the knuckles dangling inches from his nose. 

"Sod off," Elias replies. After a period of rapid typing, he relents: "Taylor found some cult in Wodonga that's trying to raise the dead. Kids these days, I tell you." 

"We haven't had a good zombie hunt in _ages_ ," Oliver mourns. "Always the restless spirits, none of the rotting corpses." 

"We do have to dig up and burn the rotting corpses, though," Elias points out. "Besides, Taylor says they stopped the little nutters before anything had a chance to crawl out of the grave." He keeps typing far longer than this information warrants. 

Always keen to hear family gossip, Oliver leans across their dozing comrade and makes a swipe for the phone. When Elias tries to lurch out of reach, the phone tumbles from his grip, clatters off the cot, and bounces precisely into the empty bit of pillow just behind Jesse's neck. 

Both brothers freeze. Jesse's eyes flicker behind closed eyelids and he sighs, still deeply asleep. 

"I swear he could sleep through a wildfire," says Oliver after a few moments, whispering in contrition. 

"Good thing, too, with how you snore." Elias cautiously lifts the phone away from the mess of Jesse's hair, one inch at a time. He and Oliver catch each other's eye across the still tent, and then both are hit by the awful laughter that strikes only when they really, _really_ mean to stay quiet. 

"God," Oliver chokes, "I'm just imagining if it fell a little different and clonked him right on the head..." 

"Might still not have woken him up," comes Elias's smothered voice. "You're laughing so _loud_ , fuck's sake!" 

"Me? You sound like a donkey!" 

Elias's riposte comes in the form of a balled-up sock hitting Oliver's nose with lethal accuracy. It's hard to keep laughing and gag from the smell at the same time, but Oliver manages it. 

"You're disgusting," he says. "Next time we meet a poltergeist, I'm just going to use your socks in place of hex bags and no one will ever go near that house again. That's how vile these are." 

"Oh, stuff it," says Elias, a disturbingly literal suggestion under the circumstances. His hysteria is fading, though, and Oliver can see his brother's silhouette rearrange itself to peer down at Jesse again. 

It's still a bit weird to have a third person barged up between them. Just enough moonlight makes it through the tent walls to tell where Jesse's head ends and his sleeping bag begins, a loud orange thing they liberated from one of the Simms storehouses before heading out to the bush. It’s not the most crowded tent Oliver has ever been in—when they went camping as kids, all the cousins would crush into a six-man tent like a pile of puppies—but this is different. 

"Look at him, Olls," Elias whispers. "He's so _young_." 

"Only compared to you, you crypt-keeper," Oliver whispers back, but he knows what his brother means. Some days he still feels like a middle child, caught between Elias and the blank space where Charlie should be. Charlie would've been almost fifteen if it weren't for that demon. Jesse says he's seventeen—though who knows for sure—and it's not the same at all, Oliver knows that, but even in these cramped quarters there's something comforting about being three instead of two. 

"I still wonder," Elias says. "If we should really be dragging him round with us. I mean, he can barely fire a gun." 

"Not for lack of trying," says Oliver feelingly. Then, "I dunno. He's all right with a knife and all. And I don't think..." The concept that Jesse has no family, no safety net of relatives to catch him where his parents couldn't, is still difficult for Oliver to fathom. "I'm pretty sure he doesn't have anywhere else to go." 

"Wouldn't have let him tag along if he did." Elias shifts, making the cot squeak. "Still. I don't think he knew what he was getting into." 

"Probably would've kept following us around anyway, though," says Oliver. "He is a bit desperate, isn't he?" He feels bad as soon as he's said it, and leans over to make sure Jesse's still asleep. No movement comes from the shape on the ground. "I just meant—he's the one who keeps asking to learn about this stuff. He _wants_ to hunt." 

"Yeah, true. If we turned him out, he'd probably go throw himself at a werewolf and get eaten in minutes." Elias sighs and rolls onto his back. "I suppose better us than some people, eh?" 

"Damn right." Oliver grins. "And not a single cock have we drawn on his face! Even though he'd make it _so easy_." 

"Doesn't know how lucky he is," says Elias dryly. There's a brief blaze of light as he checks his phone one more time, and then he says firmly, "Go to sleep. We've got monsters to hunt in the morning." 

"Stop nattering with Taylor, then," Oliver grumbles, but he scoots deeper into his bag nonetheless. After a minute he adds, "It's not like we don't look out for him. Jesse." 

"And we’ll keep looking out for him." Elias yawns. "You never know. Maybe Jesse'll surprise us." 

"Wouldn’t that be something," says Oliver, and they both drift off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Related reading: [What happened to the third Simms brother?](http://cambionverse.tumblr.com/post/127669961679)


End file.
